Jesus, our All in All
As Jesus Is, So Are We (Part 12)
Who are you, and who are you in Christ?
The issue with the church is our identity, and in our trouble realizing who we are in Christ.
And yet, it comes so simple for us – or it ought to be simple, for that matter. Christ paid a great price for us to be children of God. We are God’s beloved, and we are His sons and daughters. This is what’s meant by sanctification. It’s a progressive manifestation of Christ-likeness because of Christ’s life in us.
Take that last line in. We could try to copy Christ out of our own efforts, and end up, as Andrew Farley keeps saying, with egg on our face. The thing is, we needed a complete life-transplant, and not a mere change.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
Christianity is not doing, it’s being. It’s not loving for us to live – it’s the opposite of this. It’s us living loved. We let everything be done in love, because God is love, and God is in us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
Ephesians 1:3
And lest we forget – we are blessed in Christ. We are blessed perpetually, blessed forever with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. We are saints. We are chosen. We are made holy. We are accepted in the beloved – a great Truth for us to take in, in a world full of rejection, scarred by death and separation!
We’re not talking about being excellent. No, we’re talking about being accepted, and being accepted beyond the world’s standards. God wants us to pass judgment and make decisions on the premise that He decided to take our rejection, that we would be accepted. We make our decisions on the promise that God decided not to condemn us, but He made the active decision to accept us. What a beautiful revelation, indeed – there is depth in our proclaiming, and telling others, that we are accepted in the beloved!
Moving on. You are an heir predestined for God’s purpose – The Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom. You are included in Christ – precisely why we serve one another. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our inheritance and our salvation; He has marked us as His own!
You are crucified in Christ – dead to sin and alive in God. We are led by the Spirit, and we release His Word accordingly. The Word we release, as mentioned by the power of the Holy Spirit – it therefore has the power to create, and to produce His fruit in and through us.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
We’re designed to depend on Christ. Without Christ, we can do nothing. We aren’t designed to depend on anything else, more than we depend on Christ, first. We do all that we do, fully aware that we do it all by the grace of God.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Romans 8:1-2
We will never make a mistake when we fix our eyes on Christ. No matter what we’re dealing with in business, relationships, and in our personal walk, or anything else for that matter; All these mistakes are done in His presence, and He causes it all to work for the good of those who love Him.
Christ was born for us, to walk with us, and His highest purpose was to live in us. He is our literal sanctification. He is not merely interested in saving us – He wanted to live with us! He wanted us that much, folks! He is the Root, and He is the Fruit.
And once again we go back to Romans 11:36 – From God is Christ for us, and to God is Christ for us. We’ve been brought back into the cycle of the infinite wisdom and eternal life of God, by way of the finished work of Christ, who reconciled us to Him, absolutely!
It’s not an accident that as we take all of this Truth in, we respond in worship – not necessarily in song and dance, but we enjoy and rejoice even more, knowing that Christ has blessed us so much, and saved us so absolutely, that our entire LIVES are worship.
It’s not about us knowing about Christ – It’s about accepting that Christ knows us, and accepts us, much so that He wanted to be with us – He blessed us with the ultimate, by blessing us with Himself! Through the blood of Christ, we have been made holy, and therefore worthy of the Holy Spirit that has been poured into us.
The cross has made us holy and pleasing sacrifices to Him. It’s expected that we would go back to the anxieties of the world, but even in those times, we go back to the cross, if only to remember what Christ has paid for us to be accepted fully and completely. Let us allow perfect love to cast out all fear, each and every time.
Christianity is not about trying hard to produce a Christ-like life. Again, it’s all been about Christ:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Galatians 2:20-21
Friends, let us live loved, looking at Christ, the Author and Finisher of our Faith – He truly is our All in All.
As He is, so we are in this world.
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